The Wounded (The Woodlands Series)

by Taylor, Lauren Nicolle

  A tear stung the corner of my eye. “Did you hear about the babies?” I said loudly. “They’re getting sick. It’s interesting. It’s only the kids born after July of last year.”

  His eyes were stressed; he knew when Orry was born. “Luckily, we worked out what was wrong and found a cure.” I left out the part where Apella and Addy were dead. It was too much.

  Deshi visibly relaxed like the band that held all his wooden limbs together had snapped inside him, and he flopped forward. He ushered me out of the chair and pointed Joseph to the seat. He took another sample.

  Joseph leaned forward, whispering to the side of Deshi’s face, “Why are you here?”

  Deshi’s face twisted into an awkward smile. “I’m not able to divulge Superior secrets.” He pretended to scratch his nose, muttering behind his hand. “Seriously guys, it’s safer for you if you don’t know.”

  Deshi strode to the door and swung it open. “You can take them back now,” he said. His voice was masked in elegance, but I could hear the pain behind it.

  Joseph was rigid. His expression confused. He gripped the stool beneath him, and I was scared he wasn’t going to let it go or that he was going to throw it at the guards.

  “I d-don’t understand,” he said, quietly.

  Deshi stood tall, plank-like against the open door, his arm crossed over his chest. “I’m a very important part of the Science and Research division. Essentially, I’m Este’s right hand man, and I’m working on a very special project for Superior Grant. I don’t have time for these kind of errands,” he snapped at the guards. “Tell Este that, next time, she should get one of her lackeys to do this kind of work for her. Collecting blood is beneath me.”

  I could tell it was an act, but Joseph was letting it get to him. He huffed and stood up suddenly, the stool clanging to the shiny tiles. My eyes connected with Deshi’s and it was all there, reflected back at me. They said, Save me. My insides turned and twisted as I started to wonder what they were doing to him, and what they were forcing him to work on. His mind was an extraordinary commodity. It could have been anything.

  He strode back to his desk, his legs a little wobbly. Without turning around, he shouted back at the guards. “The information they hold is extremely important. Don’t harm them and tell Este I’ll be there for the meeting.”

  The guards nodded and closed the door as they left.

  I didn’t know what it meant or whether it changed our plans.

  “It changes nothing,” I said, watching Joseph pace the room fervently, wearing a hole in the carpet. “We’ll offer the solution, but only if they drop Deshi and us outside the walls, then we’ll tell them.”

  “But what if he doesn’t want to come with us?” He was bewildered.

  “He does, I promise.” I reached a hand to his shoulder, trying to slow his pacing.

  He stopped dead, gesturing wildly around the room. “This place is just so strange. It’s not what I expected at all. Is it possible Deshi has a better life here?”

  “Just stop, Joseph, think. Would Deshi just desert Hessa like that?”

  Joseph shook his head. “No, no, he wouldn’t.”

  I pulled him towards the bed and made him sit.

  We went over what we would say. How we would say it. Time ticked over. We were brought lunch. The scene projected in our window darkened, and I knew they would be coming for us soon.

  The latch sounded, and two different guards stepped forward. They were less friendly than the other two but not violent. We were guided through more corridors, away from Deshi’s office. Animal heads decorated the walls and I ducked under them, holding my breath. It smelled like dust bunnies and death in this hall, and I didn’t pause or drag my feet. Their marble eyes followed me blankly as I scuttled quickly towards the large double doors and into the reception hall as the guards called it.

  The heavy, wooden doors were held together with large, iron brackets that creaked forebodingly as they were pushed open.

  Eight guards stood to attention at the wide, double windows of the large room. Long, luxurious curtains fell on either side. I looked past the guards and out to the view of her compound. A garden spread beneath. Flowers curled around birdbaths. Roses were pinned to training fences. In the half-light, it looked like a magical, mossy escape. But every now and then, a spotlight swept across it, and I was reminded that we were in the ‘reception hall’ of the seeping mind of a madwoman.

  We were told to sit on an ornate lounge; its carved legs and arms gilded. We sat, hands clasped in front of us, like we were awaiting a sentence.

  *****

  It was so quiet. All we could hear was the breathing of the guards, and the occasional shake of the iron window frames pulsing from the wind. We’d been waiting an hour, and some of the guards were shifting in their upright positions, bending down to scratch their legs while surreptitiously casting their eyes over us. We didn’t move, too nervous, too scared to even breathe.

  The latch of the door clicked, and I heard it slide back and forth five times. Then a sharp knock, one, two, three, four, five times. My skin prickled in anticipation as the door started to open. The small, pointed toe of a red, leather shoe poked through the entrance like the tongue of a snake.

  Este shuffled into the room in small, mouse-like steps. My gaze started at her feet and tracked up her very long, slender legs. She wore black stockings, and a tapered skirt with a tailored jacket pulled taut over her pointy shoulders. She was so tall and thin that I expected her to sway in the breeze. She walked carefully over the large floor, her heels clicking noisily as she awkwardly moved to avoid the grout between each tile. I chanced a glance at Joseph, who was watching her with curiosity. She held a clipboard to her chest tightly, and she kept staring down at it and back at us. Her face was pinched with a long, thin nose, a strip of lip with the barest graze of dark lipstick across it. Her eyes were icy blue under high-tweezed eyebrows, one strand of hair thick. She was like the drawing of a person rather than a real woman, everything about her sharp and angular. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her glasses. When she put them on, I nearly laughed. They were bright purple and went up at the sides like a pair of wings. Small, sparkly diamonds were glued to the edges.

  Glancing down at her clipboard, she spoke, her large bun weighing down her tiny, pointed head. “R-Rosa Bianca and Joseph S-Sulle. Right.” Her voice was like a bird squawking, and I tried not to wince at the sound of it wrapped around my name.

  Deshi walked in right then and made his way towards Este. Her head snapped toward him, and a shrill whining came from her mouth as she shook her head violently and stamped her pointed heel into the porcelain floor, hard.

  “Oh. Sorry,” he muttered. He stepped back out of the room and closed the door, sliding the latch back and forth five times, and then knocking five times.

  She exhaled in relief, like she’d held her breath the whole time, at the final knock, and Deshi re-entered the room. She really was insane. He stood next to her, his chest rising and falling fast, like he’d run here.

  Joseph stood, and I rose with him. “We’re here to offer you a trade.” She arched her eyebrow but let him continue. “We know the babies in the breeding project are developing illnesses.” Her eyes became piercing, almost vibrating in her skull, as she glared at him. “We have the solution to the problem. All we ask is that you utilize it and give us our friend in return for the information.”

  “H-H-How dare you!” she shrieked, taking a small step forward, her skin pinched in where she clasped the clipboard so tight. The guards copied her movements, closing in around us like a bloom folding in at nighttime, as they looked back and forth at each other uncertainly. Her hand was shaking as she pointed a finger accusingly at us both. “Are you implying that there is s-something incorrect in my m-methodology?”

  Joseph was rendered silent by this unearthly woman, who wobbled towards him like a baby giraffe, screeching and pointing.

  I took a step forward, my feet breaching th
e gap between two tiles. She stared at my toes, burning a hole with her furious gaze. “You know there is.”

  I waited for her to combust, to shed her skin and reveal that she was really a coat hanger covered in a thin coating of flesh. Instead, she seemed to ripple and calm herself. She straightened her skirt and glanced down at her clipboard again.

  “Even if there was a slight miscalculation, what makes you think I would trust your corrections?”

  Joseph found his voice. “They are Apella’s corrections.”

  This seemed to get her attention, and she paused, thinking. “Then why is she not h-here to face her m-mentor and tell her all the mistakes she’s made?” Her tone was so bitter.

  Joseph looked down at the ground. “Apella passed away. Two weeks ago.”

  Deshi took a sharp breath and uttered, “No.”

  Este’s face twisted into a frown. “That is a sh-shame. I had hoped to work with her again one day.” We stared at her incredulously. She reacted by digging her fingers so hard into that clipboard, I was sure it would snap in two.

  “Well, give me your theories, and I will take them under advisement,” she said, turning away from us.

  Things turned slowly, a ticket in front of my face that I was reaching to grab.

  “No!” I said, taking another step towards her. The guards moved in, forming an ever-tightening circle around Joseph and me. My veins constricted. I wanted to grab his hand, but I was scared to make any sudden movements. “You let us all go, Deshi, Joseph, and me, and then we will tell you our solution. Not our theories, our answer. It works.” I wiped my forehead slowly, a throbbing headache starting to appear. “Don’t tell me you’re going to let all those children die out of pride.”

  My words hung in the air, bobbing up and down, taunting me because I couldn’t grab them back. Este watched them too, her temper rising, her body seeming longer, stretched in anger and embarrassment.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  Joseph pleaded. “Be reasonable, Superior Este…”

  “Reasonable?” she screamed. “Have I not invited you into my h-home and listened to your requests? You know the others would not be s-so reasonable.” Her voice smarted like the whip of a cane. The end was coming in a ripping wound. I could feel it already scraping at the edge of me, toying with our safety.

  The guards stepped over each tile, like they were playing hopscotch, until they had their arms around us both, holding our arms down and telling us it was over.

  It was unstoppable. It was always going to happen but, God, I wish…

  Time slowed to a gentle drip. We shook lazily, like spring flowers in the breeze, our movements rubbery, false. This was where we were supposed to negotiate, hold our information above her head, and have her jump at it like a child trying to get at their hat. But her shrewd face belied a terror, a disconnected monster.

  She looked at both of us in turn, her eyes honing in and sizing us up. Our arms strained against the guard’s holds. “I will n-not release Mister Dehali. And now that I know the Survivors have the answer, I can’t see what p-possible use you are to me. You think we don’t have our own S-Spiders?” She smiled sickeningly as she turned a shriveled finger around in circles and said as quiet as dust, “T-take them away and dispose of them. I don’t want b-blood on the rug.”

  Joseph was letting them hold him, but as soon as she said that, he burst forward, lunging at the guard closest. A shaking teenager with his knife pointed tightly towards us. I blinked. Tears blurred my vision as movements became a blur, and noise and pain dominated.

  As I heard the impact, Joseph’s cries soared to the rafters.

  A sick kind of “Ha!” escaped my lips. Because I knew it. I knew all along that it would end this way. I was never going to get to keep him.

  Noises bit at my ears, deep cries, clattering, men bashing against each other, and shoes scuffling across the polished tiles. My eyes only caught one thing—the look of surprise on the guard’s face, his fuzzy, blond eyebrows pulled together, his eyes wide and shining with regret.

  I pulled at it; the knife was endless, sliding through flesh like the body was a sheath. Finally, it slipped quietly from my hands and landed on the edge of the rug with a tinny clang, sunk hilt deep in crimson blood.

  An irritated squeal pierced my ears.

  Blood should be warm, shouldn’t it? But it felt cold, it felt watery, and there was so much. Too much.

  Joseph appeared above me, his body shaking, or maybe it was me, I couldn’t tell. “What have you done?” His words were breathy, fear scraping away sound.

  I shook my head; it swayed back and forth, like it was pushing against something. I was so tired. My lips tried to move, but the pull of a dark, warm sleep crawled over me. My eyes closed to slits, an image projected on the inside of my lids… Joseph, asleep in our ratty chair, Orry cradled comfortably in the curve of his elbow. Peaceful.

  I felt serene, a calm I never thought I would experience washing over me in overlapping waves.

  Orry, I kept my…………

  JOSEPH

  All I could see was red. Red splashes, explosions, surprised, red faces like meat as I slammed into one after another. Sharp bangs and crumpled bodies. And then Este, her hands pulled taut at her sides, squealing with her eyes squeezed shut, like she was having a tantrum, and then silence.

  Minutes passed and, when I finally stopped moving, swinging, grabbing, the guards were lying in a circle around me like toppled dominoes, and Deshi was as white as his lab coat. I looked down at my hands, one was splattered red, and the other was gripping a gun. It felt heavy and cold in my palm. My hand shook like it couldn’t take the weight. I let it fall to the ground, the dull clunk out of proportion to what I saw around me.

  They were all dead.

  I put my hand to my mouth, but it came away sticky and tasting of copper. Bile rose in my throat. This wasn’t me. I couldn’t have done this. I looked at the faces, open mouths, eyes half shut, grimaces forced slack, the mouths wrong and still. And Este. She lay twisted over the arm of the plush, velvet lounge, her arm splayed dramatically over her forehead, her hands still in tight fists, blood spreading across her jacket.

  A hand cupped my shoulder, and I twisted around violently, panting, every muscle in my chest tight. “What have you done?” Deshi asked, bewildered. He stood back from me, frightened.

  The words nudged me. What have you done?

  I glanced over to where she fell, to where she threw her body between the blade and me. The picture was so familiar, but everything was different. She lay curled around the knife, her body forming a c-shape, her hair fanned around her face. But this time, she wasn’t curled around her own weapon. And this time, she made no sound; I couldn’t see the rise and fall of her ribs. Her eyes were slits, but I could see the whites, and her lips were parted, her small, pink tongue lying in the corner of her mouth, the way it would when she was concentrating on something. And all around her was blood, sliding its way towards the edge of the rug in a bulging circle.

  My breathing thinned out, and then it stopped.

  Rosa was dead.

  Everything clouded over, and darkness settled over this room of death.

  Deshi knelt down and checked her pulse, mine picked up in hope, but he shook his head, his breath catching in his throat. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and spoke. He said something, his face urgent and concerned, but I couldn’t hear him. I just stared at her lifeless body, wondering how all of what made her Rosa was just gone, and all that was left was a body, bones and flesh.

  Where did she go, and how could I follow her?

  What was she thinking?

  I thought of Orry, and I sunk to my knees. Orry, your mother is dead. Orry, your mother died to save me. Orry, she loved you, she loves you. She will always love you.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  I punched my fist into the tiles, because I couldn’t stand the pain; I needed to feel something else, anything else. But all my min
d, my heart, my body, kept pulsing over and over again was dead, dead, dead.

  My skin tore and shards of grout stuck to my knuckles. I didn’t look up; I just kept on pounding until I heard the rip of fabric. I looked up and saw Deshi yanking a curtain from the window. He walked over to Rosa and knelt down beside her. Looking at me darkly, he said angrily, “Get up and help me!”

  I did what I was told. I would have been confused if I could bring myself to care. He lifted her body gently and slid the curtain under her middle. She bent in a disgustingly unnatural way, and I gagged as I saw some of her insides.

  Everything quickened. My breath, my movements. Deshi wrapped her together tightly and tried to speak again. This time, I tried really hard to listen.

  “There’s a chance we can save her, but we need to be fast. Joseph, look at me,” Deshi said, his dark eyes intense. “Why do you think they wanted me in the first place?”

  I blinked and ran my hand through my hair. I felt stupid. Nothing was getting through.

  “They forced me to rebuild the healer.”

  The realization hit me hard. I snapped Rosa up, trying to ignore how much lighter she felt in my arms. How very cold she was.

  Deshi ran ahead. I followed, my eyes forward. Because when I looked down at her head lolling around at the bounce of my steps, I thought I would vomit. This was not meant to happen. I wanted to go back to that moment, put myself between her body and the blade, not the other way around.

  He turned down corridors and up some stairs. All I could hear was the drum of my blood in my ears, and the drum of our feet on the tiled floors.

  When we hit a dead end, Deshi swore, typing a password into the keypad by the door, a single red light blinking over and over. “C’mon, work, work…” he said.